Laughing Boy

This is the most engaging laugh in seventeenth-century Dutch painting: a boy’s disarming grin rendered in loose brushstrokes by Frans Hals. Not in the least inhibited, the boy shows off his far from pearly white teeth. Also laid down in rapid strokes, his tousled hair adds to the exuberance radiating from this painting. So infectious is his merriment, both for modern viewers and also undoubtedly those of the seventeenth century, that it is almost impossible not to return his laugh.

The Laughing Boy is not a portrait. Here, Hals was not interested in producing a likeness of an existing boy, but rather in recording a spontaneous expression of joy. Smiles and laughter are notoriously difficult to depict, as is clear in the work of other artists. A painted smile quite often appears forced; sometimes it even resembles a grimace, while a burst of laughter was intended. Hals’ keen sense of observation and inimitable technique ensured that he surpassed his fellow painters in this area.

Hals painted several laughing boys and girls; in some instances as part of a series of the senses. These paintings were very popular, as evidenced by the substantial number of copies that were made of them. The fact that Hals also portrayed people laughing is unusual. Unlike now, in the seventeenth century people virtually never had themselves limned laughing. However, such a different kind of commission could safely be entrusted to an artist so skilled in depicting expressions. Nevertheless, a laugh as broad and spirited as in the Laughing Boy occurs nowhere in Hals’ portraits.

(this is a reworked version of a text published in: L. van der Vinde, Children in the Mauritshuis, The Hague 2007, pp. 44-45)